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10 Craziest Right-Wing Reactions to Boy Scouts Lifting Gay Ban

The Boy Scouts of America sure like their policy of excluding gays and lesbians from scouting. They liked it enough to defend it all the way up to the Supreme Court. But this is 2013, and a majority of Americans now support marriage equality -- and nine in 10 oppose job discrimination on the basis of sexual preference.

The Boy Scouts of America sure hate losing donors left and right over their 1950s view of human sexuality. They hate it enough to finally overturn the ban.­

Scouting, of course, is as Real-American as apple pie. So, given that a photograph of the president shooting skeet is enough to elicit baboon-like howls from the hard-right, you can only imagine the reaction many of the brethren had to this vicious assault on... well, it's not entirely clear what these folk think is under attack. Is it religious liberty? Let's say it's religious liberty!

OK, even if it's not obvious how a private organization adapting its bylaws in response to changing social mores hurts America, there can be no doubt that there's a vicious assault on something underway, according to the right.

Here are some of the best reactions we've seen from the denizens of the fever-swamps.

1. This seems like a fine opportunity to bash Islam!

Over at Rightscoop, the first thing that sprang to mind on hearing the news that a secular organization is adapting to the times was, "There goes those damn Muslims again!" Responding to Obama's scandalous comment that “gays and lesbians should have access and opportunity the same way everyone else does,” Rightscoop harumphed:

So I guess, based on that logic, Obama must also believe that Muslims should allow gays to be members of their mosques, even having gay Imams. I’d love for someone to ask him that question. Of course you know he’d say that about Christianity.

Gotcha there, Mr. Muslim-in-Chief! Not every Boy Scout is a terrorist, but...

Anyway, the BBC reports, “a prayer room described as Europe's first gay-friendly mosque is opening on the outskirts of Paris. The new centre is run by Ludovic-Mohamed Zahed, a gay Islamic scholar, married to a gay man, and the founder of Homosexual Muslims of France.”

And here in the U.S., “Muslims for Progressive Values” has “grown from a few friends to a thousand members and spawned a string of small mosques and spiritual groups that stretched from Atlanta to Los Angeles,” according to the Huffington Post. And in that network, “women are leading congregations in prayer, gay imams are performing Islamic marriages, and men and women are praying side by side.”

But hey, why let a religion's diversity get in the way of a good stereotype?

2. Serious question: Why do you want to make God weep?

You'd think the Almighty could fight her own battles. She is, after all, omnipotent. But it never hurts to have Rick Santorum in your corner, and he's here to explain what this move isreally about: the continuing victimization of people like Rick Santorum:

What makes these organizations so effective, I believe, is precisely their ability to appeal to something “other,” to some higher authority to which we are accountable. I believe what makes the Scouts so successful, therefore, is loyalty to its first principles, its history and its understanding of what it means to live in duty to God.

Wednesday’s vote is a challenge to the Scouts’ very nature and is another example of the left attempting to remove God from all areas of public life.

Rick also offers a somewhat unique definition of “the left”...

Men at the top of the food chain whose boys are insulated, although not immune, from the harmful effects of societal change are behind this effort. Board members James Turley, CEO of Ernst & Young, and Randall Stephenson, CEO of AT&T, are advocating for gay scoutmasters and scouts. They are joined by two big funders, UPS and Merck, that have signaled change or money will disappear.

Just wait until the Frothy One sees the new Boy Scout oath being unveiled this week:

On my honor I will do my bestTo do my duty to God the spirit of Judy Garland and my country totally gay countries like Franceand to obey the Scout whatever Unnatural Law floats my boat;To help other indoctrinate people into the homosexual lifestyle;To keep myself physicallystrong buffed up and impeccably coifed,mentally awake, and morallystraight queer as a 3-dollar bill.

3. You know who else allowed gays and lesbians to be scoutmasters?

Never one to let Godwin's Law go unconfirmed, Sandy Rios of the American Family Association knows where all of this is heading. Right-Wing Watch flagged a segment on her radio show, in which she warned of creeping Liberal Fascism. “We know that if you think that homosexuality is a problem you will not be allowed into public service hardly in any way,” she said (Rick Santorum can attest to that). “If you think that homosexual couples should not be able to adopt, if you have a problem with that, then you are out of the adoption business. I think it is fascism personally; I would go to that extreme and say that it’s a lack of freedom.”

Because nothing says “freedom” like forcing local scout troops to embrace the religious right's endless collection of antiquated bigotries.

4. I see you shiver with antici...pation!

The American Family Association's Bryan Fischer is worried about sly and sexy glances being exchanged over a smore, or the brush of a hand across a scout's arm as his merit badge for basketry is pinned to his chest. The problem, according to Fischer, is that gay is catching:

You really can't have boyscouts that are open homosexuals because they're gonna be mingling, they're going to be in the same tent, they're going to be on camping trips, they're going to be in cabins with...uh... boys, and you just can't take the risk of the kind of sexual tension... that could easily happen.

We're guessing Bryan Fischer's never been to a summer camp full of hormonally deranged boys.

5. You're no doubt wondering, OK, but what does Chuck Norris think about all of this?

Why, obviously he thinks it's a grand conspiracy! See, everything is happening at once: society is becoming increasingly tolerant of gays and lesbians, Obama eventually came out in favor of marriage equality and other people also share that same view! Wake up, sheeple! Connect the dots! Just like Chuck Norris did at the eminent journal of political science, Ammoland:

A Boy Scouts of America national board member, James Turley, who is also global chairman and CEO of the accounting firm Ernst & Young, recently said he “will work from within to seek a change” to overturn the BSA policy that bans gay Scouts and leaders.

But is Turley working on his own initiative, or has the White House prodded him with perks and favors?

Is it a coincidence that Turley came out swinging against the BSA’s century-old policy to ban gays from leadership and that he has such close affiliations with the pro-gay Obama administration?

Is it a coincidence that Turley and his wife, Lynne, were just guests at a state dinner hosted by President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama in honor of British Prime Minister David Cameron at the White House on March 14?

Is it a coincidence that Turley was nominated to President Obama’s Export Council in 2010?

But not even Chuck Norris gets how deep this thing goes: Jim Turley also serves on the board of the National Corporate Theater Fund, and we all know how those theater people are, right?

6. Wow. Could anyone be even more confused than Chuck Norris?

Glad you asked. The answer to the question, "Could anyone be even more confused than X," is always Buster Wilson, the poor man's Bryan Fischer.

“There is no mistaking the fact that homosexuals are known, by their own admission, to have multiple sexual partners...”

Whereas straight people are assigned one partner for life by the Central Committee.

He then offers up a heaping pile of…empathy, arguing that he's just really, really worried about anti-gay bullying:

The gay community is very concerned about gay children being bullied and wrestling with suicide. I am dreadfully worried about those issues as well. No one, including me wants a child to be bullied and certainly we would never want a child to wrestle with much less choose suicide. But what could happen when you place a gay kid in a group of straight kids in a closed environment such as Scouting: is there not an increased worry of bullying and rejection that might cause a child to think of suicide?

Won't somebody think of the gay children? Buster wraps up with a flourish: "I would refer you again, to my friend Bryan Fischer’s latest articlewhere he reminds us all of the Jerry Sandusky story.”

That's right, Jerry Sandusky, married father of six who could have led a Boy Scout troop at any time in the organization's 100-year history provides the perfect argument for banning openly gay scouts.

7. Zombie lies never die....

There's some debate over how many Americans are gay, but the low-end estimates are around 4 percent of the population. So when an oft-citedstudy of 269 cases of childhood sexual abuse found that just 0.7 percent of the perpetrators were gay (82 percent were the straight partner of a close relative of the child), normal people realized that the supposed connection between homosexuality and pedophilia, like a Jew's horns, is nothing but a myth embraced by ignorant bigots. That hasn't led to the demise of the talking-point, however, as 90 percent of the objections to the Boy Scout ban being lifted demonstrate.

When CNN invited Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council – a hate-group according to the Southern Poverty Law Center (and lest you think that's bizarre, I should note that CNN always invites a member of the Klan to discuss issues pertaining to the African-American community) -- he broke out the old classic:

The mere fact that someone openly identifies themselves as homosexual means that they are modeling for boys the acceptability of homosexual conduct. And parents who do not agree with that view have a right to protect their children from that...They have a right to protect their children from the potential risk of child sexual abuse at the hands of men who might be attracted to other males.

8. Non-right-wing Christians are just weird.

Peter Labarbera is so not-gay that he spends his time hanging around leather clubs and gay bathhouses, and has a collection of gay skin-flicks impressive enough to earn the nickname, “Porno Pete.” It's all in the name of research, dontcha know?

And while that seems like a perfectly normal way for a professional homophobe to spend his day, LaBarbera thinks other, less bigoted Christians are just weird – as evidenced, in part, by their support for the Boy Scouts of America to drop its ban on gays and lesbians. Also, too: something about "jihadists":

I think a weird version of Christianity is creeping in, you know, ‘who are we to judge’ and that whole tolerance thing. Look, the most intolerant people on the planet are the gay activists, maybe up there with the jihadists.

9. First Obama came for the homophobes, and I didn't speak out because, screw 'em....

If you ever need some sober, calm perspective on an issue, the first place to go is WorldNetDaily, where dedicated Birthers patiently explain howtofu is making your son gay. And Erik Rush is busily connecting the dots for the benefit of Preppers everywhere. After warning that conservatives will face “prosecution under civil-rights statutes,” Rush charges “tyrannical” Obama with “treason” (yawn), and then offers Benghazi as evidence. Then, he fits the Boy Scouts into his apocalyptic narrative...

The Boy Scouts of America, who have developed moral refinement and honor among young men for more than 100 years, have been demonized because they do not embrace sexual deviance. Human life has become cheap, while a random insect or tree frog can cripple an entire industry and the livelihood of thousands. Those who observe millennia of Judeo-Christian moral doctrine rather than Marxist-imbued apostasy are becoming persona non grata. God Himself, by virtue of what He asks of his creation, has become “evil,” while that which His ancient Enemy promotes has become “virtue.” I could continue this list ad nauseum.

And everything bad is good again …

I’ve said for a long time, fomenting widespread civil unrest has been part of President Obama’s game plan from Day 1. This, I have asserted, he will do in order to implement martial law or something resembling it, at least initially.

Martial law, "at least initially." And then the bad stuff will begin.

10. Could it be...SATAN?!?

Sure, why not bring old Lucifer himself into the debate? According to Right-Wing Watch, “Matt Barber of Liberty Counsel believes that Satan is the real culprit behind the potential shift in policy. Barber blamed 'spiritual pressure' from Satan — 'the Prince of the Earth' — for the potential decision of the BSA board.” Barber writes:

The Prince of the Earth seeks to corrupt and ultimately destroy all that is righteous, honorable and good. It’s little wonder, then, that for years the Boy Scouts have faced a malicious and unrelenting assault at the hands of those “who call evil good and good evil.”

There you have it – our sane and wholly rational national discourse in a nutshell, thanks to the bitter dead-enders of homophobia. Keep up the good work, fellas, you're as entertaining as Siegfried and Roy!

People can make fun of all the things that have come to light about the Boy Scout Admin all they want. The facts are that times have changed and the innocence of America is lost. My sons will not EVER join the Boy Scouts, not because there are gay people in the organization. It's the facts that child molestation and Sodomizing young boys has happened for many years, and they paid people off, and not report to the police to cover up and not hurt the "name" of the organization. I want my children to keep their innocence for as long as if takes and you can't trust anyone anymore. It's sad that its cone to this:(

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